Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-03-12

Attacked by Pneumonia ut Nassau,
Where He Had Gone for
His Health

James Buchanan Eads, whose death
was announced yesterday, was born in
Lawrenceburg, Ind, on May %, 1920.
He very early developed love for ma
chinery, and when only Mine years old
understood so well TIE description OF a
steam engine made by the engineer of
an Ohio-Iivcr steamboat that he was
able TO make toy steam engine HIM
self that worked very well. Without
any help from others he is said to have
been able to take apart patent-leyer
watch and put it together again in good
order before he was twelve years old.
When young Eads was thirteen years
old his father failed in business and
movedto st. Louis, where the boy ped
died apples in the street Afterward,
while in the employ of merchant, he
got access to his employers library,
which contained number of scientific
and practical books, and with these he
laid the foundation on which he built
his subsequent career.
He began operations as n practical
engineer by raising a cargo of pig lead
from sunken barge near Keokuk. He
used a whiskey-barrel with the head
knocked out for a diving-bel. He was
afterward able to say that there was not
stretch of fifty miles OF the rivers
bottom between st. Louis and New Or
leans on which he had not stood in Il
diving-bell. In 1912 he organized a
company for wrecking sunken steamers,
and it proved a great financial success.
Three years later he sold out and started
to manufacture glass in st. Louis. In
two years he quit that business with
e25, 600 worth of debts to pay and no
assets. His creditors lent him 81, 500
to start with in the wrecking business
again, and in 1854 ne was worth half
million.
Soon after the war broke out Attor-
ney-General Bates called him TO Wash.
ington, where Eads prepared plans for
three war ships for use on the Missis.
sippi and its tributaries. These were
followed by seven ironclads, which he
contracted to build in sixty-five days
and he fulfilled the contract To these
was added an altered snag-boat, 80 that
in two months he furnished eight iron
clads, carrying l07 guns. In other
boats built later he applied the first
steam devices ever successfully used
for the handling of great guns.
From 1867 to 1874 he was engaged
in building the great steel arch bridge
over the Mississippi at st. Louis, he
had problems in that bridge which had
not then been placed before engineers.
The centre arch had clear span of $40
feet. Two side arches were SOP feet
each. One pier weighing 5000 tons
had to be sunk 1876 feet below high
water mark, through 90 feet of sand
and gravel. Another pier was but a
tribe less troublesome. The arches
were built out from the pier, the parts
being supported through huge masts
erected on the piers. 1t twas this bridge
that first gave Eads an international
reputation.
IT was this reputation, indeed, that
afterward enabled him to make a sue
cessful experiment in improving the
mouth of the Mississippi, although he
had about all the United States en-
gineers and commission Of seven OF
them opposed to him. The commits
sion had proposed to avoid the mouth
by digging a canal from Fort st. Philip
to Breton bay. Eads proposed to
make the river deepen its own mouth.
He was so confident of success that
he offered 10 DO the work at his
own expense and wait until he
had demonstrated his success before
he should receive his pay. His sys-
TEN was simply to narrow the mouth OF
the river by setting piles and planting
willows. He asserted that these jetties
would make q swifter current, which
would carry more soil in suspension,
and that the water would then sconr
out deeper channel. He had to go TO
work on one Of the mouths which he
thought not SO well adapted for the ex-
pertinent as another, but In four years,
or in 1879, the United States inspecting